


everything is a sweet revelation

by theatrythms



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Romance, Title from a Carly Rae Jepsen Song, gray and mae r in love w their boyfriends! cringe!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23059651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatrythms/pseuds/theatrythms
Summary: “Alm and Celica make it look so easy.” Mae pouts, looking over the rim of her coffee cup.“I wish they had a tutorial.” Gray hums.“How-to-successfully-transition-from-being-friends-to-dating.” She snorts.“Mycen and Lima, 2020.”Or; Gray and Mae are hopeless romantics.
Relationships: Alm/Anthiese | Celica, Boey/Mae (Fire Emblem), Gray/Robin | Tobin, Mae & Gray
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	everything is a sweet revelation

**Author's Note:**

> id like to dedicate this to ruu @aroraboringalis on twitter bc we both have echoes brain worms and are the two sole fayelukas fuckers on the planet . i for some reason wrote this in like maybe five hours bc im just That much of a graybin fucker . i hope u enjoy !!!!  
> title comes from i really like you by carly rae jepsen !!! fitting for graybin !!!!

“I just like him sosooooo much Gray, it’s so cringe.” Mae sniffles, cradling her naggin of mixed coke and vodka closer to her chest. If Gray was sober, he would’ve taken it from her, but instead he rests his head on her shoulder, a by-product of the large gulp of vodka he’d taken. The floor of Faye and Celica’s dorm bathroom is cool beneath them, the distant chatter of their friends muffled by the door.

A lot of Mae’s dramatic eye look is smeared across the area around her eyes, the deep purples and pinks mixing with the glitter. Gray has some of Faye’s gold glitter on his cheeks, smeared up his cheekbone like highlighter. Tobin had ordered him to go take it off before he got it all over his own face, and with a helpful sigh, Mae had grabbed his hand, promising to show him the makeup remover.

It’s still not off his face, but he’s found a stellar kindred spirit in Mae.

“I knooow, I feel the same way.” Gray sighs, wincing when Mae punches him. 

“You better not be talking about Boey!”

“I’m talkin’ about Tobin! You know I’m talkin’ about Tobin.”

“It’s just like,” Mae pauses, taking another drink, followed up by a loud hiss at the sharp taste. “Two months ago, me n’ Boey were best friends. And now he’s like. My boyfriend. And I’m his girlfriend. And that’s so weird.”

“Dude,” Gray exclaimed, turning to face her. “I feel the exact same way. It’s so weird. Like I'm just allowed to kiss him, whenever I want.”

“Or hold his hand!”

“Or send him stupid memes.”

“Y’know what,” Mae says firmly, turning to stare Gray in the eyes. Mae is really quite pretty, Gray thinks, and Boey really is lucky to have such a pretty girlfriend. “We’re right in the same boat. Practically paddling next to each other. Let’s like, get coffee, or something! We can talk strategy, or talk about what it’s like to start dating your best friend!”

“Young adult novels make this look way too easy.” Gray says, before whipping his calendar out.

-

Gray arrives at the coffee shop at the exact same as Mae, meaning they’re both late and lied about being far closer than they actually were. Gray can understand why Mae was late, coming all the way from the science building at the other end of campus, but Gray has absolutely no excuse, bar the fact Clair made him mind her bag while she ran to the bathroom for what felt like three hours.

Mae glares at Gray while ordering him to get a seat while she orders their drinks. This meeting with Mae is becoming a staple example of why he shouldn’t organise to meet up with friends after four jagerbombs, but all he knows is that he woke up that morning with an urgent reminder on his phone that he had ‘things 2 dizcuss w/ May >:)))’.

Mae settles down across from him, plugging in her laptop to the socket below their table. It’s not that him and Mae aren’t friends, they just don’t know each other all that well, and everyone is still adjusting to the way their friend groups _merged_ when Alm and Celica started dating. Mae studies chemistry, an actual science, compared to Gray’s fake communications and media course, and both Mae and Boey never forget to remind Gray of that. Celica’s birthday party was a glaring reminder that this experience of being one homogeneous group will have some time to get used to.

They sit in silence for a few beats, sipping their iced coffee as the cafe fills with new students for the between-class rush. He realises, with a heartbeat, that this is the first time--bar Celica’s party, that resulted in the three jagerbombs that got them here--they’ve hung out without Tobin and Boey, and Gray’s face flushes.

Gray had been perfectly aloof with Tobin when he asked him why he was meeting Mae. But under his thigh his phone buzzes, Tobin’s messenger ID flashing across his notification center. “have fun w mae <3”

Gray has a boyfriend, still early days, but Tobin also happens to be his childhood best friend. Mae also has a boyfriend, barely weeks in, and Boey is also Mae’s childhood best friend. Together, they realised, in the bathroom of Celica and Faye’s dorm room, that they have no idea what they’re doing.

“Is that from Tobin?” Mae asks, looking up from her own phone.

“Hum? What?” Gray says, leaving Tobin on read.

“Your text. You’ve got a big stupid look on your face after you got it.” Mae’s grin is almost evil, snickering at him from the other side of the table.

“Yeah, well who are you texting? Boey?”

“Celica, actually, and she says hello.” There’s a buzz from her hand. “She also says I’m not allowed to be mean to you.”

Gray takes a chug from his coffee, glaring at her pointedly. “Tell her it’s too late.”

“I’m glad we both showed up, considering we made this plan when we were blackout.” Mae mutters, her eyes scanning around the shop.

“Hey! I wasn’t blackout!” Gray scoffs, crossing his arms. “If anyone was blackout it was you. Boey had to carry you back to your dorm.” Gray could also mention the purple lipstick that was smeared across Boey’s face and neck, a summary of Boey and Mae’s time in the bathroom after him and Tobin went looking for them, but Gray is feeling polite, and he doesn’t know Mae well enough to be that mean to her.

“Do you even remember why we agreed to meet in the first place?” Mae asks, then her eyes widen, as if she’s heard what she just said. “Not that I don’t want to hang out with you! Oh, Mila, I really didn’t mean it that way.”

“Wow Mae, here’s me thinking I’ve finally found a friend in stem, and she tells me she doesn’t even wanna get coffee with me.” Gray snorts, teasing her just a little bit more. He stretches back, resting his elbow on the back of the chair next to him. Like a true gentlemen, Gray let Mae take the sofa. “But to answer your question, I actually… I don't know why.”

“I know it has something to do with Tobin and Boey.” Mae says, stating the obvious, and Gray rolls his eyes before taking another sip. Her cheeks are rosy, almost matching the color of her hair, and Gray smiles at her, because it’s almost like a taste of his own medicine, getting to see how flustered he is whenever he thinks about Tobin.

“How are things with you two?” Gray asks, leaning forward. Celica’s party was the weekend before, and Wednesday was the sole time that matched up for both of them. “What’re your dates like?”

Mae opens her mouth, before slamming it shut with a clank of her teeth. “Well, actually, we’ve only been on one.”

“One? One date? How have you only been on one?!”

“We’re stem students! We do twenty nine hours a week!” Mae flushes, and Gray says a quick thank you for his thirteen hours in total. Mae’s blush deepens, her fingers clutching her coffee. “We’re partners in two of our labs, so Boey once said that it’s almost like we have dates. Most of the time, we just get takeout in his dorm when his roommate is at the gym.”

“That’s a date.” Gray blinks, thinking back to all the times him and Tobin just sit in Gray and Alm’s dormrroom and watch stupid Netflix movies, and eat disgustingly greasy but cheap pizza. Thinking about it seriously, he realises that’s the extent of him and Tobin’s dates, nothing far and fancy, nothing like Mae and Boey’s candlelit dinner for their first, and sole, date. “That’s what me and Tobin do.”

“Wait, really?!” Mae blinks, before dissolving into a round of giggles. Gray joins her, snickering into his hand. “God, I’m so stupid. I’ve been dating my boyfriend for the past two months and didn’t even know.”

“Who told you that wasn’t a date?” Gray asks, cocking his head. Gray is more experienced than Mae is when it comes to dating, thanks to a string of girlfriends back in Ram, and the several dates he went on with Clair Knight, one of the prettiest girls in his sociology of gender class, but Tobin is the first time he’s really wanted to try hard with someone, and he figured out pretty early that dating for Tobin is being with Gray whenever, or all the time, in one of their dorm rooms or getting lunch between classes, booking a study room in the library and letting Tobin rant at his boyfriend about international commerce. Tobin isn’t low energy or low effort, but this is the first time Gray has been with someone to match his wants and needs, and every day with Tobin makes him wonder why he hesitated for so long with making a move.

“Ugh, Celica did.” Mae says, dragging her hand down her face. Gray immediately sympathizes with her, needing more than he’ll ever have to know about her and Boey’s reasoning.

“You mean Celica, the same Celica that’s dating Alm?” Gray laughs. Alm is his roommate, one of the people he loves the most in the world, and Celica is one of his best friends from his childhood, but when they started dating, they went all in, with tri-weekly dates planned weeks in advance, coordinating study timetables, and each date was an elaborate outing, like a trip to an Aquarium, or a new experience, like taking a free life drawing class at the library. Gray doesn’t know if Alm and Celica have heard of the idea of ordering takeout, watching a cheesy movie, and then making out until someone’s roommate walks in.

“I know.” Mae nods from behind her hands. “But in Celica’s defense, she’s in Alm’s course, they have the time to do all that stuff. Me and Bo don’t, even if we want to.”

Alm and Celica, childhood friends, reunited in orientation for their sociology and social policy course. A love story written in the stars, practically its own category Esping-Andersen’s three worlds of welfare. They hadn’t seen each other in nearly a decade by the time they started at Zofia Castle University, and for the first five months of first year, managed to dance around each other, getting to know each other again, before falling deeply, deeply in love again, and now a year in, it’s almost sickly sweet to see.

But Gray gets it. Sometimes he felt like since falling for Clair didn’t look like them, something must’ve been wrong. And then again with Tobin, the way that there wasn’t any gradual transformation from tentative friends to being together. There was Tobin, in his dorm room, pushing his lips against his, and the definite feeling that something was very right with Tobin’s weight against him. Two weeks later, Alm came into their dorm, practically bursting with excitement, pronouncing to the room that Celica’s friends Boey and Mae had finally made a move with one another.

“Alm and Celica make it look so easy.” Mae pouts, looking over the rim of her coffee cup.

“I wish they had a tutorial.” Gray hums,

“How-to-successfully-transition-from-being-friends-to-dating.” She snorts.

“Mycen and Lima, 2020.”

“Did people think you and Tobin were together before you actually were?” Mae asks, biting her lip. “There’s this girl in our course that thinks we’ve been dating since secondary school, and they just thought we’d been together this whole time!”

Gray laughs, thinking back to the first time they met Boey and Mae. Orientation week was full of excuses to go out on the lash, and Celica’s friends spent the whole night bickering to each other, despite buying several drinks for each other, splitting the coatroom fares, checking up on each other when one of them strayed from the group, and splitting a taxi home. Tobin had thought it was amusing, seeing two friends be so close like that, but it was Kliff, their resident gambler, that started prophesying who would confess first and when their first child would be born.

“No, not really. There was Clair, who once heard me mention I had an ex-boyfriend, and immediately assumed I was,” He holds two fingers up. “One; a gay man, which I’m not, I’m bi. And two; that Tobin was my ex.”

“Didn’t you and Clair date for like, half a month?”

“Yeah, but I think part of that was the competition with Tobin.”

Mae blinks once, twice at him, her brow raised. It’s hard to believe Gray and Tobin, who Gray likes to think are one of the happiest couples they know, fighting over a _girl_. Gray, with his sociology of gender required reading, helped Tobin comprehend compulsory heterosexuality, but Gray did have genuine feelings for Clair, even when they fizzled out after four dates. Clair is also the younger sister of the President of The Deliverance, the student activism group Alm got really involved in within the first week of college, dragging all of them in too.

“You guys are… really weird.” Mae balks, shaking the ice in her coffee for emphasis.

Gray pokes his tongue out. Maybe he is comfortable enough around Mae to be a bit mean to her. “Yeah, well, you and Boey are really weird too. Do you guys even have sex?” He says too loudly, but the coffee shop is crowded enough for them to go under the hum of noise.

(For the record, Gray and Tobin have never gone beyond heavy petting, and it makes sense for how cautious Tobin is. Tobin is wholeheartedly embarrassed about everything to do with his body, being in a relationship, but never of Gray.)

Mae doesn’t answer, she just tilts her head upward, before dramatically dropping in, nodding furiously.

“Really?!” Gray laughs, only somewhat shocked. Boey’s roommate seems like a total gym rat, a somewhat familiar face when Gray sees him at the running machine when he’s avoiding talking to Faye’s much older but very nice boyfriend, Lukas, but it explains why they have an empty room most of the time.

“Only a few times! It’s weird! Sometimes!”

“And when it’s not?” Gray asks, only because he gets it, even in the more safe for work situations, what it's like to look at Tobin in his arms and think how strange this is, how weird this is.

Mae’s face seems to melt, like all of her insides have turned to goo, and her whole face matches her hair. It’s a dopey, love sick grin, the same kind Gray sees on Alm and Celica, even a year into their relationship, the same he sees on Boey’s face when he looks at Mae, and most notably, how Tobin looks at him, and it makes Gray feel like he hung the stars in the sky.

“It’s really nice. I just.” Mae pauses, frowning as she finds the words. “I just like being with him. And It’s stressful, sometimes, because I feel like we’re not doing this whole friends-to-lovers right, but then I remember how much I love being around him.” She looks up at Gray, her pink eyes bright, even if her expression is nervous. “Do you feel that way?”

His phone buzzes under his thigh again, Tobin’s name flashing in his mind before he’s on his screen. He knows its either a meme, or Tobin being deeply offended he’s been left on seen, but he likes talking to Mae about stuff like this, likes talking to Mae in general, and he’s looking forward to the next birthday party that’ll give them the opportunity to sit on a bathroom floor and gush over their boyfriends, so ignoring his boyfriend for forty minutes doesn’t seem like such a crime.

“Of course I feel the same.” Gray snorts, realising he’s almost out of coffee. “Do you want another one? I know Tobin’s free now, if you wanted to ask Boey to hang out?” He asks, raising a brow.

Mae nods quickly, already dragging her phone out of her pocket, tapping a quick text to Boey. “He’s gonna hate me for dragging him out of the science building when we have a lab in an hour, but it’ll be worth it if you buy him a chamomile tea.” Mae finishes with a wink, and Gray has to sigh.

When he’s waiting in the queue for coffee, he feels Tobin’s arm wind around his hip, his forehead resting down on his shoulder. The world of economics and business students is a tough one, not for the faint of heart, and if Tobin didn’t feel like he was guaranteed a decent job and a decent wage at the end of it, Gray would wonder why he bothers.

“I ordered you a flat white.” Gray says softly, holding the hand around his hip. Tobin doesn’t respond, but he does press a feather-light kiss to his shoulder, barely felt under his hoodie and t-shirt.

“Thanks Gray.” Tobin says, squeezing him tight, and there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.

-

There is of course, another party, only this time it’s pre-drinks for some Deliverance society event that Alm demands they all go to. Gray rarely hosts prinks, but he doesn’t mind the people crammed into him and Alm’s dorm room. He spends a solid amount of time talking to Faye’s boyfriend Lukas, a final year student, secretary of the Deliverance, and all round good guy, perfect for Faye. He talks to Kliff, cleans up Genny’s white wine spill on Alm’s desk, and feels like some people are missing.

To his amusement, in the corner, sitting on Alm’s bed, Boey and Tobin have their heads bent, muttering something to each other. He wonders what on earth they could be talking about, until Tobin’s eyes find his and his whole face erupts into a precious peach color, from his forehead to his chin. It fills Gray with a sudden warmth, realising that it’s them, actually, him and Mae they must be talking about, and Gray sets off immediately to find her.

When he gets to the bathroom, he knocks, tentatively, opening the door to find Faye, Mae and Celica all sitting on the floor, passing a bottle of wine between them.

“Gray! You gotta join us!” Mae cries, tugging him by his khakis to sit with his back against the shower door. Beside him Faye hiccups, nodding enthusiastically, while Celica, very prim Celica, who only drinks wine and must be the supplier of the bottle in Gray’s hand, is giggling rapidly.

“What’s happening in here?” He asks, looking around them. He’s heard fables, heard the lore, of girls’ bathrooms on nights out, but this feels like an induction of sorts, a baptism.

“We’re talking about,” Celica brakes for another round of giggles, her hand coming to cover her mouth. Her hairband is askew, her lipstick smudged, only a little, and with her hair pushed to the side, Gray can see a faded hickey on her neck, his brows raising at the sight. “We’re talking about our boyfriends~”

“You mean the boyfriends outside this very room? That you’re electing to stay in here, rather than out there, with them?” Gray prompts, and Faye laughs so hard he thinks she’ll choke.

“I was just saying, how sometimes, Lukas meets me between classes with food if I’ve forgotten to eat.” Faye says, her eyes dreamy.

“And I was saying about how Alm doesn’t mind when I steal his jumpers.” Celica says with a sigh, and the hoodie she’s wearing is immediately familiar.

Mae looks at Gray, a bright, coy gleam in her eyes, before she turns her head up, her arms crossed. “I can’t think of anything nice to say about Boey, so I might as well just not saying anything at all.”

Gray laughs because he knows she’s joking, but he also laughs because that means it’s his turn to share one of his favourite things about Tobin, and he’s never not in the mood to gush over him.

“Well, sometimes, Tobin…”

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading!!!!  
> also just 2 mention their majors hehehe bc i dont know where else to put this but here!!!  
> alm & celic - socpol & sociology  
> gray - communications & media  
> tobin - commerce & economics  
> kliff - maths and geography  
> faye - computer science w a minor in sociology  
> boey & mae - chemistry  
> genny - english and drama  
> lukas - socpol + sociology  
> clive - sociology and economics  
> clair - sociology and social justice


End file.
